Thats exactly why people think vinyl sounds good. You can't be a stupid fck when it comes to mastering on vinyl. You can't crank up the airband until ears bleed because no stylus would track that. If you do the cutting engineer and his hf leveler plus deesser will fix your fckup, thus making it decent again. Not being stupid could be accomplished on digital as well, but people only smart up when they're forced to.

 

Compared to digital reproductions I think that vinyl is rather groovy!

 

I am trying to remember what was that other thread about mastering for vinyl. We have this member (forgive me i don't recall his name) a master engineer who has given a sum of precise, critical and scientific advice that very few could pass on, let alone for free. He nailed in that thread every aspect of vinyl's imprecision and quirks and what might be good about it although he admitted to hating doing it because it is a chore.
Personally, i have done a good load of mastering for vinyl and most of the times these cuts were sold out in a matter of a few months. But these are usually numbered prints of 500 or 1000 copies and that 's it. Sometimes even 300 copies.
In the older days, around late 80s up to mid 90s we used to cut vinyl in UK plants. And back then, 1000 and sometimes 2000 copies, wasn't even considered a proper release, it was considered a promo. You could have a bootleg record with sampling half of MJ's fucking Thriller inside, printed on 1000 copies and nobody would say a single word. No one gave a dime because those were the less amount of copies that you could actually print, although to make a good profit you needed to sell around 3000-5000 copies, given you still had expenses on sleeves and covers, distribution etc. So in my good ol indie label, every time we had to press original music we believed it was worth the hassle, we would go beyond that "promo" limit in numbers and hope for the best. When we had a "dodgy" dance track to go for 12" with samples that needed clearance we could not afford (and there have been plenty of those), we stayed within the 1000 copies range and everybody was happy.
You see when money is scarce people get inventive, if only just out of necessity. What i am trying to showcase here is, there is no black and white. If you have enough years on your back and been is this "game" for decades, you know it can be black and white and all shades of grey too. Btw, back then we prayed that any of those pirate 12"s caught attention of big multinational labels and generated a rights lawsuit because that would put us on the map, it would mean we had a hit on our hands. Never happened, the opposite did. Meaning our original work was copied blatantly by some EMI artist and we had to fight legally to get some compensation. That ended well though with compromise before trial. Some others didn't.
But if anyone back then thought a minor bootleg release with a couple of uncleared samples was "evil" or at the very least "pirate", nothing could prepare them for what is going right now with AI generated music. And fuck me, some of those, although they never sound innovative and mostly feel derivative, they are too good, better than what most amateur musicians would ever dream of sounding, with top notch musicianship and orchestration/arrangement. The amount of intellectual theft with AI models training on released music is unheard of. But i keep digressing and excuse me.
We can argue for decades what medium is best but for the older peeps like me, vinyl is essential for my being. Yes digital doesn't come with those limitations audio wise, but you can't touch it. And no matter what the argument is, anything you can have effortlessly for free, like a Spotify playlist or Youtube etc., has a permanent degraded value. No matter how precise it may sound like in the case of "high end" 24bit audio albums and singles.
And on the other side sits vinyl. But a vinyl record, is a musical token. Makes a statement. It's like whatever piece of the material world you hold dear because it is tied in your heart and brain with memorable times that you will never forget till you leave this world. So yeah, admittedly, vinyl lovers are mostly driven to the medium by sentiment and not by the sound quality per se. But then, if you are not sentimental as a person, how the fuck do you want to call yourself a musician in the very first place. You can't invoke in others what you don't have deep inside.
Peace.
PS: Since we 're in Audiosex anyways. Within my brain i describe listening to Spotify and Youtube music as almost the same as watching porn. Like cool but no participation, if you know what i mean. Listening to vinyl and open reel is almost the same as having actual sex. Get it ?

 

Last edited: Feb 20, 2026 at 7:20 AM

Nice analogy I agree.
It's the whole experience. Going to a record shop, digging through.. talking to the savvy staff there about the record and listening to a bit of it. Taking the record home on the bus and admiring the artwork, reading the liner notes. And then you're invested - you've opened your mind to letting in the experience of the music - you know that real humans have crafted the sound and that they have a message for you and you are open to hearing it, getting it and entering their world. Thats a ritual right there.

 

I am personally happy that I have kept my record collection pretty much since I bought my first record and have largely supplemented it since then. It also gives a good retrospective view of what I have listened to over the years.
It is a space-consuming and somewhat expensive passion but a great joy to be able to play the records I have bought with my heart over time... to be able to be properly informed via the cover about recording details, anecdotes, pictures, etc. and the joy of listening to old mono recordings, which I fortunately have quite a few of.

I would like to make the claim that a vinyl record sounds different and in my opinion better than a CD, mp3 or streaming, however subjective the claim may sound.

In my opinion, music streaming services are something the devil has created. Apart from the fact that musicians are not paid properly, which is a huge problem in itself, it also gives people who subscribe to these services an unrealistic idea of the real costs of creating music and, at worst, a superficial approach to what they listen to because the music supply is almost endless, with the result that many people tend to zap from one piece of music to the next without really listening anything to the end.

I also have a fairly large collection of CDs that I am happy with - with the music that was recorded during the period when vinyl records disappeared from stores and the fascination with digital and DCs took over. But if I have the choice, I will always choose a vinyl record over a CD.

So I am personally happy that vinyl records are back - both in new releases and reissues.

 

Coin-Operated Phonograph

In the 1930s and early 1940s, the official term was Coin-Operated Phonograph; it wasn't until 1946, with the introduction of the AMI A (Mother of Plastic) model, that the term Jukebox became established. In 1936, the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company was the market leader in the USA with an annual production of almost 45,000 units. From the 1940s onward, vinyl records were used as a more durable storage medium, and by the end of the 1940s, the first single records (45 rpm) were already on the market.

 

I smell a little irony in this...

 

among the young generation they often have no opportunity to compare.

but whatever, as "cool" as vinyl is, i somehow regret that digital media die. somehow CDs are easier to use (think car, or t ransporting them), and from the ecological point of view they are also better, vinyl records require tons of energy to press them and when they brake or wear out, PVC is hazardous waste, while CDs can be recycled.

 

Recycling Vinyl LP

 

Vinyl's never been away although since end of 90's it's mainly been used for promotion.

People like that music can also be tactile, it's a new experience for young 'uns, and the sound quality will be better than their mobiles speaker even shitty buds.

Pointless thing with vinyl today is the added cost of masters, plates, physical distribution, printing and packaging etc, i wouldn't mind pressing up some vinyl again but only when there's a demand for mine

Also, a lot of club tracks i have on vinyl aren't available on any other medium, my deck is still plumbed in but i haven't spun anything on it in years.

It's missing the point to worry about quality, a great record is something to hold, something to behold.



Below is copy and pasted from SOS website:
Q. Should I master my material for vinyl?

• Mastering

By Hugh Robjohns
Published February 2004
Do tracks have to be specially mastered for transfer to vinyl? If so then what are the frequencies in the spectrum to pay special attention to? I had four tracks transferred to vinyl and told the pressing plant to do any necessary EQ'ing required. I got the test pressings back and found them to be very harsh in the upper frequencies when compared to my CD master. Should I get my tracks professionally mastered for vinyl next time?

SOS Forum Post

Technical Editor Hugh Robjohns replies: Mastering for vinyl is, like all mastering, a combination of art and science which takes a lot of experience to do well. If your budget allows, I would certainly recommend going to a mastering/cutting house with a proven track record in vinyl production.

I can, however, suggest a couple of issues to consider when preparing material for vinyl. Wide stereo width at low frequencies causes vertical movement in the groove and can result in the needle skipping or the record being unplayable. So it's a good idea to reduce the width of low frequencies to close to mono. Avoid stereo flangers on bass guitars or stereo chorus effects on keyboard bass lines, for example!

Another important point is that the record groove is not cut with a flat frequency response. In sounds generally, there is far more bass energy than high-frequency energy, and to optimise the signal-to-noise ratio of a record, as well as to maximise the amount of time a side can play for, the cutting signal is processed with a large amount of pre-emphasis. In other words, the low frequencies are reduced and high frequencies increased on cutting, and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) standardised EQ curve used in the phono preamp (see diagram) restores the bass and reduces the treble, achieving a flat overall frequency response on replay.

What this means in practice is that if there is a lot of high-frequency energy in the original recording (as there tends to be in dance music, for example), the record cutter protection limiters can be activated, and this can often result in the kind of harsh sound you have referred to. A good mastering engineer will optimise the EQ, high-frequency compression/limiting and overall levels to keep the sound the way you want it while maximising the level of the cut.

Without the training and experience to know how much EQ and dynamic control is required, it's very hard to second-guess this kind of thing when mixing your track at home. So, yes, I would head to a professional mastering engineer with a proven track record. When looking for someone suitable, ask to hear examples (off vinyl, naturally) of material similar to your own music that he or she has cut.

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-should-master-my-material-vinyl

 

For the record, I love vinyl and think it's great that it's making a comeback!

 

I'm head over heels in love with this record; doesn't it look fantastic, this 30cm diameter LP with its matte black, glossy surface? My new love is reliable and never complains, and it holds a great secret that can be unlocked with a record player and amplifier: music to listen to. Yes, its appearance and packaging are very nice; it has an insert and a booklet made of paper and cardboard.

 

Good for you to assume this, neither do you.

Let's see what you wrote in your opening statement: You contradicted the assumption that analog formats offer the listener a more organic experience. Since "organic" is not an objective term, which would imply everyone has the same idea what it means, it was kind of pointless of you to even argue about the sentence being true, false (or in your own words BS), but since you already started it: Organic is a synonym for something that evolves, develops; that is "alive". Those attributes are true for an analog medium, which can't be copied accurately, nor will the data stored remain in its original state over time for different reasons. It is "organic" in every way measurable.
A digital recording however can be reproduced infinite times, with copies being identical.

Your thorough research resulting in the Wikipedia link proves my point btw, lol.